{"id":639,"date":"2021-04-29T00:00:30","date_gmt":"2021-04-29T00:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/?p=639"},"modified":"2021-04-17T22:49:22","modified_gmt":"2021-04-17T22:49:22","slug":"may-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/may-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"May 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\nMercury and Venus are\nevening objects, Mars visits the twins, Saturn and Jupiter shine in\nthe morning, and there’s a total lunar eclipse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\nThe\nmonth starts with Mercury and Venus in the evening sky. They reach\nhigher into it each evening. The moon is in the neighborhood next to\nVenus on the 12th<\/sup>\nand Mercury on the 13th<\/sup>.\nIf you have trouble identifying Mercury, the moon will be a good\nguide for you when it’s near. Mercury’s ingress into the night sky\ngoes about as far as it will around the 17th<\/sup>.\nThat’s when it’s at greatest elongation 22\u00b0 east of the sun. As the\nplanet holds still against the background of stars at the bottom of\nAuriga, Venus moves toward it. Spotting easily recognized Venus is\nanother good way to spot the harder to identify Mercury. They are at\ntheir closest on the 28th<\/sup>.\nVenus is moving on toward the feet of Gemini at month’s end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\nMars\nwas near Gemini’s feet at the start of the month. It moves to the\ntwin Castor’s waistline nearest the star named Mebsuta on the 9th<\/sup>.\nIt continues to Pollux’s waistline nearest Wasat on the 23rd<\/sup>.\nAnd at the end of May, Mars is exiting Gemini.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\nSaturn\nis a mid-morning riser in Capricornus. Jupiter is in Aquarius and\nrises a little later. Watch the moon go into last quarter phase as it\npasses near these planets on the 3rd<\/sup>,\n4th<\/sup>,\nand 5th<\/sup>.\nNeither planet moves much against the stars this month. But they\nbecome easier to see as they rise earlier each morning. The moon\npasses by Saturn again on the 31st<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe\nmoon is at southern lunistice on the 1st<\/sup>,\ngoes north of the equator on the 8th<\/sup>,\nis farthest north on the 15th<\/sup>,\ngoes south of the equator again on the 22nd<\/sup>,\nand is farthest south again on the 28th<\/sup>.\nAt each lunistice, it’s 25.6\u00b0 from the equator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nLast\nquarter is on the 3rd<\/sup>,\nnew moon is on the 11th<\/sup>,\nfirst quarter is on the 19th<\/sup>,\nand the moon is full on the 26th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nLunar\napogee is on the 11th<\/sup>\nat 406,500 kilometers. Perigee is on the 26th<\/sup>\nat 357,200 kilometers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\nThe\nbest lunar event this month is the total eclipse on the 26th<\/sup>.\nFor most of the Americas, the moon will be setting as the moon enters\nEarth’s shadow. Most of the Pacific gets to see the entire eclipse.\nSo do New Zealand, eastern Australia, and most of the island of New\nGuinea. For eastern Asia, it’s a moonrise event as the moon leaves\nEarth’s shadow. Partial phase starts at 09:45 UT. Total phase is from\n11:11 to 11:26. Partial phase ends at 12:52. So that’s only 15\nminutes of totality. The moon could have a reddish brown,\norange-brown, or just plain brown look. Some people have reported\nseeing other colors like green or blue during total lunar eclipses,\nbut no one’s sure why and those reports are rare. The red and orange\ncolors come from sunlight going through Earth’s atmosphere before it\nreaches the moon. It’s the color of sunset and sunrise refracting\nthrough. So no, the moon’s not in total darkness during a total\neclipse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\nNotable conjunctions this\nmonth:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n3rd<\/sup>\n\u2013 Saturn and the moon 4.0\u00b0\t\t\t5th<\/sup>\n\u2013 Jupiter and the moon 4.3\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n6th<\/sup>\n\u2013 Neptune and the moon 4.0\u00b0\t\t\t10th<\/sup>\n\u2013 Uranus and the moon 2.2\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n12th<\/sup>\n\u2013 Venus and the moon 0.7\u00b0\t\t\t13th<\/sup>\n\u2013 Moon and Aldebaran 5.4\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n13th<\/sup>\n\u2013 Mercury and the moon 2.1\u00b0\t\t16th<\/sup>\n\u2013 Mars and the moon 1.5\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n17th<\/sup>\n\u2013 Moon and Pollux 3.1\u00b0\t\t\t19th<\/sup>\n\u2013 Moon and Regulus 4.7\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n26th<\/sup>\n\u2013 Moon and Antares 4.6\u00b0\t\t\t29th<\/sup>\n\u2013 Mercury and Venus 0.4\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n31st<\/sup>\n\u2013 Saturn and the moon 4.0\u00b0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mercury and Venus are evening objects, Mars visits the twins, Saturn and Jupiter shine in the morning, and there’s a total lunar eclipse. The month starts with Mercury and Venus in the evening sky. They reach higher into it each evening. The moon is in the neighborhood next to Venus on the 12th and Mercury […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-60"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":647,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions\/647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}